January 6, 2014 - Frigid Fort Wayne

Many of you, dear readers, are wondering how the Confraternity of Penitents is surviving in the aftermath of a winter storm yesterday that dropped a foot of snow onto Fort Wayne, Indiana, and that is sucking in frigid arctic air. As of the writing of this blog, the record low for this area has been broken at -13 degrees F. Tonight temperatures are to drop by four or five more degrees, if the forecasters are correct. That along with increasingly high winds is to make the wind chill factor approach -40 degrees.

So, for those who are wondering how we are doing, we are, so far, doing fine. The CFP house is warm and the Gift Shop and Office are being heated by electric heat and Gift Shop Orders are being filled and mailed and new CFP applications being filed in the Office. Please pray for the homeless, however, and those whose heat has been turned off or whose water pipes have broken or roofs caved in from the snow.

Here are some photos, snapped this morning when we were at a balmy -9 degrees.

Confraternity of Penitents House taken from across the street

From the back door of the Confraternity of Penitents House looking toward the rear of the property.

At the back door of the CFP House, looking right.

At the back door of the CFP House, looking left.

Altar in Prayer Chapel in CFP House. Those white scrolls that look like branches outside the window behind the ceramic chalice statue are really frost swirls on the outside window. Very beautiful. The wooden box on which the chalice rests was used as the tabernacle at our first retreat in 1998.